Why We Will Always Have the Poor With Us

Jesus makes this extraordinary statement in Matthew 26:11: "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me." But, why is poverty inevitable? Is it because it is just one of those consequences of the Fall? Absolutely. But what consequence? Is it the scarcity of resources? Certainly that is part of it: "Cursed is the ground because of you..It will produce thorns and thistles for you...(Genesis 3:17,18). Therefore, some fail as they till because nature in its fallen state does not abundantly give back in the measure that we till. But, what about those that do not even till or have never tilled? No, that can't be all. The ground may be cursed, but in His mercy, He has allowed men to develop science and apply it to all areas of human endeavor so that there is great and growing abundance not only in the U.S. but in an increasing area of the world. He has given us the ability to apply our intelligence in an orderly universe so that much of the world has been transformed into a garden and at least that part of the Fall, along with medicine and weaponry that allows the intelligent but physically weak to defend life, liberty, and property. Also, part of God's common grace is free-market capitalism where there are great and powerful incentives to work and create and toil with a reasonable assurance of profit above mere subsistence. Ah, but here you can hear the rattling of the long-dead corpse of Marxism gathering up its bones for one last roar, like the frightful revisiting of dead philosophies past: "Greeeeeed, Greeeeeed and the unnnnnnnequal distribution of those resources!" I suppose that's part of it in a shrinking part of the world - shrinking because of the gracious overthrow of Marxist ignorance and greed in the 1990s. Part of God's common grace has been its institutional defeat (though not in academia) and the release of millions to the free-market of which I just spoke. But this does not explain the continued and increasing violence, hopelessness, and brutishness of people surrounded by material abundance especially in the West where the very air of opportunity has been breathed by generations.
No, there must be a deeper cause and I have just finished a book that supplies the answer: Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes The Underclass, by Theodore Dalrymple. Did you catch the key word in the subtitle: worldview? This is what makes this book not just another book about the poor. The author has been a psychologist and criminologist among the British underclass for over twenty years. He supplies the missing piece. The underclass are under because they have bought into a huge lie created in academia and perpetuated by what he calls the professional redeemer industry. Yes, ideas have consequences (just ask Eve) and as one thinks, he will do. The great consequence of the Fall is not the uneven distribution of resources but the unequal distribution of truth. The great lie is that men are not men but bags of chemicals that like their amoebic cousins, can only react to environmental stimuli. They are poor and oppressed not by the vagaries of capitalism or lack of compassion, but by the paralyzing lies that there is nothing they can do to escape violence and poverty. In short, Dalrymple says that they do not know how to live. Its bad philosophy on parade in the ghettos of a thousand cities and in the tragedies of millions of lives. And the lie that under girds that lie is that all lives are of equal quality. There is no good life; there is no good, healthy culture; there is no poisonous ideas or culture; there is no good.
The mistake among the chattering classes is to assume that since crime appears more among the poor, poverty must be the cause. But, perhaps wrong ideas cause crime and crime causes poverty. Here are a few other offerings from the book:
- It is a mistake to suppose that all men want to be free; freedom entails responsibility.
- 7 (at least) features of the underclass world view:
1. a dishonest fatalism
2. victim psychology
3. contempt for authority because they are the ones who dole out consequences to bad thinking.
4. denial of guilt
5. claim of inability to understand their own motives or actions
6. societal pardon for past crimes and exemption from future crimes
7. boredom because they have no interests beyond momentary excitement
8. addiction (purposeful) to crises and drama. This is their entertainment
9. attraction (purposeful) to violent and abusive relationships
10. tribal mentality: the success of one is a reproach to all
11. desire for triumph without merit
12. low culture is more genuine than refined culture
13. need for constant excitement and instant gratification
- the lessening of restraints increases, not decreases crime
- if there was more justice in the world, there would be more not fewer prisoners
- "they are bored because they have never applied their intelligence... intelligence is a distinct disadvantage if it is not used: it bites back."

Paul says in Colossians 2:8, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." It is wrong thinking that holds captive. The good news is that thinking can be changed in the realm of common grace and through Christ there is a great and powerful alternative.